Jennifer Gish: Domestic violence issue won't just go away

Jennifer Gish

Published 9:33 pm, Wednesday, August 6, 2014

"Hey, Jenn. I just put the link to the Ray Rice story up on Facebook and someone's already blaming the victim," one of the Times Union's editors shouted across the room. Not long before, he'd posted a link on the Times Union's Facebook page about the Ravens running back's all-too-short two-game suspension for knocking the woman who's now his wife unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator in February.

It wasn't just one comment, more than one Facebook poster shifted the blame to Janay Palmer: "After he beat her she married him. He shouldn't be punished at all. She should have her head examined though."

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I wasn't surprised. Domestic violence is the thing we don't like to talk about, and would rather not attempt to understand. It's easier to write the perpetrators off as creeps and the abused as willing victims, two people playing a part in a nasty relationship drama.

Except that it's not that simple. Too often, abuse will lead to murder, as it has many times in our own community. One in four women is a victim of domestic violence, and for men, the number is one in seven. In the fallout from the Ray Rice suspension, we saw the two public takes on the issue. On one end: ESPN recently pulled Stephen A. Smith from the air for a week for his commentary on the Rice case, which included the insight that women should "make sure we don't do anything to provoke wrong actions." A series of actions by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell only served to underline the long-held notion that relationship violence is somehow different than if Rice would have dragged an unconscious stranger through the elevator door for security cameras to see. And even the courts — after a grand jury indicted Rice on a third-degree aggravated assault charge — allowed him to participate in a pretrial program rather than treating what happened as a crime worthy of jail time. We'll never fully understand what happened in their relationship, but people who work in the field of domestic violence know that often it doesn't start with an elevator beating.

On the other end: Goodell took a lashing from sports commentators and columnists across the country for the two-game suspension he handed Rice, shorter than what some players who violate the league's drug policy have received. Talk about the suspension opened up dialogues on message boards, where some noted the effects of battered women's syndrome and reminded everyone that domestic violence isn't a matter of a person losing their cool. It's a calculated effort to gain control over another person, who just happens to be the person who loves you. And why would she still marry him? Why would she ask Goodell for leniency or apologize at the initial news conference? Maybe she was afraid not to. Maybe she had been convinced by Rice that it was her fault. Maybe she loved him and she hoped he would change, as so many of us have tried to think the best of our loved ones, even when all the evidence says otherwise. But none of that matters. She was the one knocked out cold. There doesn't need to be any sort of reason for that. If I punched you in the face at the grocery store over an argument about tomatoes, no one would say you shouldn't have been standing so close to my fist.

Some have said the Rice punishment is an insult to the NFL's ever-growing fan base of women, which stands at about 45 percent. But that would also be saying that domestic violence is a women's issue, and it's not. It's everyone's issue.

And we don't want to talk about it, because like Goodell characterized the assault to reporters during a news conference last week, it was just "a terrible mistake." Baltimore fans cheered Rice when he took the field for training camp, desperate for a redemption story and wanting to go back to the game they love.

"We were brought up to be polite. We were brought up to say, 'That's private. I'm not going to talk about it or mention it.' Or, 'I really worry about my sister, but I don't even know how to bring it up.' " says Maggie Fronk, executive director of Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services of Saratoga County, who pointed out that domestic violence is the second-most common violent crime in the area she serves and one of the top two reasons for homicide. "There still is that stigma, and then we also have that confusion that someone who we may know and who is a really nice man or woman ... to think that they have another side that can be abusive, that confuses us."

I know a woman who called police after her husband pushed her head into a wall. The officer asked her if she was sure she wanted to pursue charges because it was "only the first time." If I'd gone into her home and done the same, no one would ask if she wanted to offer me a free pass.

Goodell — although it was pointed out that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had initially received a six-game suspension for being accused but never charged with sexual assault — said the two-game suspension and three game-check fine was consistent with the NFL's policy on domestic violence.

If the policy is to treat it that lightly, Goodell should brace for more tragedies. In 2012, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed himself outside of Arrowhead Stadium after he'd already fatally shot his girlfriend. Former Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth is still doing time for arranging for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, and the baby who doctors saved is now a mentally disabled teen. Already, the league has seen what happens when domestic violence escalates. Goodell had an opportunity to make an example of Rice.

With an eager fan base that's willing to be held captive in stadiums and in front of televisions every Sunday, Goodell had a chance to fuel a public attitude shift toward domestic violence and potentially save lives by taking a real stand, says Connie Neal, executive director of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She wants to see domestic violence patches and purple ribbons imprinted on the turf, something to say the NFL's policy on the issue is not just "consistent," as Goodell told reporters, but consistently strong.

We'll never see it. Players will wear pink cleats and jerseys for breast cancer awareness, but those would be the blameless victims, right? It's uncomfortable to talk about domestic violence — harder yet to take the time to understand something so complex, insidious and potentially close to home. Instead, it's far easier to forgive, forget and get back to the game.